republished in his "Essays", in 1858), has contrasted
the theories of the Creation and the Development of organic beings
with remarkable skill and force. He argues from the analogy of domestic
productions, from the changes which the embryos of many species undergo,
from the difficulty of distinguishing species and varieties, and from
the principle of general gradation, that species have been modified;
and he attributes the modification to the change of circumstances.
The author (1855) has also treated Psychology on the principle of the
necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation.

In 1852 M. Naudin, a distinguished botanist, expressly stated, in an
admirable paper on the Origin of Species ("Revue Horticole", page 102;
since partly republished in the "Nouvelles Archives du Museum", tom. i,
page 171), his belief that species are formed in an analogous manner as
varieties are under cultivation; and the latter process he attributes to
man's power of selection. But he does not show how selection acts under
nature. He believes, like Dean Herbert, that species, when nascent,
were more plastic than at present. He lays weight on what he calls the
principle of finality, "puissance mysterieuse, indeterminee; fatalite
pour les uns; pour les autres volonte providentielle, dont l'action
incessante sur les etres vivantes determine, a toutes les epoques de
l'existence du monde, la forme, le volume, et la duree de chacun d'eux,
en raison de sa destinee dans l'ordre de choses dont il fait partie.
C'est cette puissance qui harmonise chaque membre a l'ensemble, en
l'appropriant a la fonction qu'il doit remplir dans l'organisme general
de la nature, fonction qui est pour lui sa raison d'etre." (From
references in Bronn's "Untersuchungen uber die Entwickelungs-Gesetze",
it appears that the celebrated botanist and palaeontologist Unger
published, in 1852, his belief that species undergo development and
modification. Dalton, likewise, in Pander and Dalton's work on Fossil
Sloths, expressed, in 1821, a similar belief. Similar views have, as is
well known, been maintained by Oken in his mystical "Natur-Philosophie".
From other references in Godron's work "Sur l'Espece", it seems that
Bory St. Vincent, Burdach, Poiret and Fries, have all admitted that
new species are continually being produced. I may add, that of the
thirty-four authors named in this Historical Sketch, who believe in
the modification of species, or at lea